


Understanding

by IAmANonnieMouse



Category: London Spy
Genre: Alex POV, Established Relationship, M/M, One-Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-22
Updated: 2017-03-22
Packaged: 2018-10-09 03:04:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10402335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IAmANonnieMouse/pseuds/IAmANonnieMouse
Summary: Danny is like the sun, or better yet, the moon. Most nights, you take it for granted, but once you learn of its beauty, it’s impossible to look away for long.





	

**Author's Note:**

> My second London Spy fic! Not half as angsty as [my first!](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10368621) (See, Forger? I can be good!)
> 
> I wanted to write something before I went to bed, and this happened. I hope you enjoy!

The fork is bent, slightly. Probably warped from the heat of a dishwasher, or perhaps caught between two heavy objects. Stepped on? Dropped? Thrown from a window? Chewed on by a bear?

“Alex?”

Alex tears his eyes away from the silverware. Danny is looking at him, wearing that facial expression that isn’t _quite_ a smile, but could very easily become one. 

“I’m sorry,” Alex says. “Did you ask me something?”

And _there’s_ the smile, the one that can stop the breath in Alex’s chest. Has he ever felt that free, to smile that brightly, nothing held back? Not that he can remember.

“I asked what was wrong,” Danny says.

Alex glances back down at the table. He shifts the fork again, but it’s bent just enough that it doesn’t lie flat, and it is impossible to make it sit perfectly parallel to the edge of the napkin. Alex forces himself to fold his hands and stop staring.

“Nothing,” he says.

Danny is quiet for a moment. Then: “Here.”

He reaches over and swaps their forks. Alex straightens it—it’s perfect, lines up beautifully, completing the lines that bisect the table into ratios of three—even as he feels that burn of embarrassment. His partner—Danny is the one who uses the word partner, but Alex thinks it sounds nicer than boyfriend—his _partner_ had to rearrange the silverware because it was bothering him.

The silverware was bothering him.

He’s an agent at MI6 tasked with handling some of the most complicated, sensitive cases that pass through his department, and he’s affected by a fork.

“It’s okay, you know,” Danny murmurs. Alex glances up and sees only quiet acceptance. “I understand.”

He can’t possibly, but still, the words loosen something in Alex’s chest. He nods, glances away, then back. Danny is like the sun, or better yet, the moon. Most nights, you take it for granted, but once you learn of its beauty, it’s impossible to look away for long.

He loses time again, staring at Danny. When they first met, he was better at controlling the urge, but now.

The waiter brings their food. Even as they eat, Alex can’t help but watch, take in the curl of Danny’s fingers around his knife, the slight tension in his lips as he cuts the meat. He’s nervous, but doesn’t want to show it. Maybe Alex shouldn’t have brought them out to a restaurant like this, but it’s been a good day, and he wanted to have a nice night with Danny, one where they could enjoy each other and eat and be normal.

Except, he should have realized Danny would be uncomfortable. And the fork.

Uncertainty pushes Alex to speak.

“There is a rule in maths,” he starts. “You can’t have more than one variable, one unknown.”

Danny watches him, mouth hinting at a smile. The tension surrounding him is already lessening, and he handles his fork and knife more naturally, attention now split between proper etiquette and Alex’s words.

Alex wants to tell him that he wouldn’t care if Danny ate with his fingers, but he doesn’t know how to say that without it coming out wrong, strange, breaking all the rules of social etiquette that were drilled into him, so he uses maths instead. He can always trust maths to fill the gaps that the English language can’t reach.

“It’s very controlled. Regimented. If you have more than one unknown, there is a way to work around it. There is always a solution.”

He brings a bite of food to his mouth. Chews, swallows.

“Why isn’t real life like that? Why do we have to have so many…variables in our lives? We can’t just solve for one. We can’t simplify, integrate. We can’t…”

Danny is watching him, smiling, barely. Alex doesn’t even know why he said that. It’s…He doesn’t know why he said that. He returns to silence, waits for Danny’s reaction.

Danny sips his drink then meets Alex’s eyes. “Thank you,” he says, and smiles.

It’s not what Alex was expecting.

That night, after, in Danny’s flat, Danny curls up along his side, close enough to touch, but not quite. He does this a lot, leaves a space so that Alex can make the next move, can choose to ask for Danny’s touch or not. Alex doesn’t know how Danny seems to wordlessly understand that sometimes, after, Alex feels like he doesn’t fit inside his own skin anymore, and any contact with someone else would shatter the fragile control he’s clinging onto. 

Danny seems to understand a lot of things about Alex. Even things that Alex hasn’t figured out about himself.

Alex turns his head, smiles. “What are you thinking about?” he asks, echoing Danny’s words from a few weeks ago.

Danny beams. “You,” he answers. “I love you.”

“I love you,” Alex says. He bridges the distance between them, twines his fingers with Danny’s. “Thank you,” he says. “For understanding.”

He doesn’t know how to explain, doesn’t expect Danny to realize what he’s talking about, but it’s Danny, so Danny smiles back and kisses him and whispers, “I’ll take all your bendy forks any day.”

**Author's Note:**

> I am on [Tumblr.](http://iamanonniemouse.tumblr.com/)


End file.
